And if you enjoyed that, please join us at 7:30 pm on Tuesday, May 7th, 2013, upstairs at Hopleaf, for an evening with Suzanne Clores, Mary Beth Hoerner, Robert McDonald, Dion Walton, and former co-host Sara Ross Witt!

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It was a small but hardy crowd that braved the roaring snow to make it out to this week's edition of Tuesday Funk. The thirty-odd folks in attendance were treated to a strong program featuring some returning readers, some first-timers, a whole lot of laughs, and maybe a sniffle or two. (Hey, it's cold out, okay?)

We kicked off the festivities with Dana Norris, who brought us a painfully funny reminiscence of her quest to lose her fear of hell. Mairead Case followed that up with a tantalizing excerpt from her novel-in-progress about teenagers in a small midwestern town. And Zoe Zolbrod took us through the Thai countryside on a quest for sex and opium in her essay "Pai Foot," from The Beautiful Anthology.

After a break for beer, our Poem by Bill was "Time Is Not on My Side." Bill followed that up (subbing in for a travel-stranded Lania Knight) with a chapter from his recently completed young-adult science fiction novel, Root, which is set right here in Tuesday Funk's very own Chicago neighborhood. (Or is it?) And CP Chang brought the scripted portion of the show to a lovely, contemplative close with his meditation on race and belonging, "Tribes," from the 2nd Story anthology Briefly Knocked Unconscious by a Low-Flying Duck.

It was then that we bid a fond and slightly choked-up farewell to our departing co-host Sara Ross Witt, who will now be focusing more on her own writing (and who will next be appearing on our program as a reader on May 7th!). Thanks for all the great work, Sara, and we look forward to what you'll produce in the months to come.

All in all, it was a program that seemed to delight our (unusually polite) audience, but if you couldn't be there don't despair. We'll bring you plenty of video excerpts in the weeks to come, and then we'll be back Tuesday, April 2, 2013, with a program featuring Mary Robinette Kowal, Jeremy Jasper, Wesley Chu, Reagan Keeter, and Tuesday Funk co-founder Reinhardt Suarez, not to mention the debut appearance of our new co-host, Gapers Block's Andrew Huff. Don't miss it!

Our readings take place at Hopleaf Bar, 5148 N. Clark St. in Chicago. We get started promptly at 7:30 pm in the upstairs lounge. Arrive early if you want a seatbut no earlier than 7:00 pm. Our readings are free, but only those 21 and over will be admitted. No food can be brought in from the restaurant. See you there!

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As announced at February's Tuesday Funk, I, Sara Ross Witt, will be hosting this exciting reading series for my last time on Tuesday, March 5th. I cannot express how fun it has been to see this reading grow into what it is, and how fun it has been to help it along in the minuscule ways that I have.

While I am resigning as co-producer and co-host of Tuesday Funk, I am not leaving. This is not good-bye. Instead, this is my chance to say what I've kept in my heart these last three years: thank you, thank you, THANK YOU.

To our readers, you are wonderful and inspiring. Each and every one of you have been very sweet to me, to Bill, to our series. Thank you to our fans and supporters, seeing you every month melts away any stress I carry with me for at least two magical hours.

To Reinhardt Suarez who recommended me for the position, thank you for sharing Tuesday Funk with me. I'm grateful every day to have met you at New School many years ago and to have continued our friendship through yet another reading series!

To Hallie Palladino and Connor Coyne, thank you for placing the care of your beloved series into our hands and thank you for trusting us with its care and growth.

Thank you to Hopleaf, Johnny, and Mark for providing us with a fabulous space, friendship, and tasty drinks. Most especially I want to thank my co-host William Shunn and his lovely wife Laura. They are the heart and soul of Tuesday Funk, growing and innovating the series, as well as turning it into a warm, welcoming family. Bill and Laura, thank you for all that you do for Tuesday Funk, for being my second family and supporting me through the ups (marriage, baby) and downs (major car accident!) of my life, and for believing in me.

I am also delighted to introduce my successor Andrew Huff, founder of Gapers Block. I know he and Bill will do amazing things with Tuesday Funk. I look forward to sitting in the audience the first Tuesday of every month, listening to the talented readers, enjoying a drink (or two) and watching the series evolve!

So please join us for my farewell party and to hear our outstanding readers on Tuesday, March 5, 7:30 pm, in the upstairs lounge at Hopleaf?

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Dana Norris is the founder and host of Story Club. She once went on a lot of internet dates and she writes about those mistakes for the websites In Our Words and Role Reboot. She blogs at her website dananorris.net. She has been published in The Rumpus, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, the Tampa Review, and her stories have been featured on Vocalo.org (89.5 FM). She performs around Chicago with Mortified, The Paper Machete, The Kates, Essay Fiesta, This Much is True, Write Club, Beast Women, and many others.

Hear Dana and the rest of our outstanding readers on Tuesday, March 5, 7:30 pm, in the upstairs lounge at Hopleaf.

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Zoe Zolbrod's first novel, Currency received a 2010 Nobbie Award and was a Friends of American Writers prize finalist. Short stories and nonfiction have appeared in The Chicago Reader, Knee-Jerk Offline, Fish Stories Collectives, and Maxine, a zine she co-founded in the 1990s. She's a contributor to the literary websites The Nervous Breakdown and The Rumpus, and lives in Evanston, IL, with her husband and two children, where she works as a senior editor for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Hear Zoe and the rest of our outstanding readers on Tuesday, March 5, 7:30 pm, in the upstairs lounge at Hopleaf.

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Lania Knight lives down-state where she teaches creative writing at a small-ish directional school. Her stories and essays have appeared (or are about to!) in New Stories from the Midwest, Midwestern Gothic, Jabberwock Review, and PANK. Her first book, a novella about a gay teenager in Missouri, was published in August 2012. You can find out more about her at www.laniaknight.com.

Hear Lania and the rest of our outstanding readers on Tuesday, March 5, 7:30 pm, in the upstairs lounge at Hopleaf.

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Mairead Case (@maireadcase) is a writer, teacher, and graduate student with recent work in Best American Comics 2011, The Unified Field, and at Bright Stupid Confetti. Currently she is Youth Services Assistant at the Poetry Foundation Library and edits projects for featherproof books, Yeti Publishing, and the Public Media Institute, among others. She is completing a novel.

Hear Mairead and the rest of our outstanding readers on Tuesday, March 5, 7:30 pm, in the upstairs lounge at Hopleaf.